Ascension outsources Illinois hospitalist staff to SCP Health

ILLINOIS, UNITED STATES — Healthcare firm Ascension has decided to outsource its hospitalist staff in Illinois to SCP Health, a clinical services provider. 

The move, effective June 1st, will make SCP Health responsible for the hospitalist program within Ascension Illinois’ acute care hospitals.

The decision comes as Ascension grapples with financial challenges. For fiscal year 2023, it posted a net loss of $2.7 billion and an operating loss of $3 billion. Rising expenses, including staffing and labor costs, contributed to the losses.

According to Loren Adler, a fellow and associate director at the Center on Health Policy at the Brookings Institution, hospitals tap staffing firms like SCP Health to operate facilities, especially emergency departments. 

“Fundamentally, (hospitals) are doing it because they think it costs less money to do it this way than to pay (workers) themselves. They probably wouldn’t do it otherwise,” Adler said, per Chicago Business. 

According to Yale Medicine, a hospitalist is a physician who cares for inpatients, meaning they work only inside a hospital.

“This change will mean that Ascension Illinois will no longer directly employ our hospitalist clinical teams,” an Ascension spokesperson told Becker’s Hospital Review. 

“We continue to work with our hospitalists to make this a smooth transition.”

The spokesperson did not specify the number of employees affected but noted the goal is to “deliver safe, high-quality care and an exceptional patient experience with no gaps in service.” 

SCP Health, founded in 1994, offers health systems staffing services across care specialties and tends to patients in more than half of the U.S. 

The firm also offers billing and revenue cycle services to its hospital clients. According to a January Moody’s Investors Service report, SCP Health reports $1.4 billion in net revenue.